I grabbed a coffee this afternoon with Akoha, Billions With Zero Knowledge and Social Entrepreneur, Austin Hill, who informed me that DemoCamp Montreal 2 is taking place on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at Society for Arts and Technology (SAT).
I had no idea.
First off, DemoCamp is “a lighter-weight style of un-conference. A DemoCamp lasts only a few hours on a weekday evening, as opposed to a traditional BarCamp which would usually be a multi-day event and take place on a weekend. As such, they are easier to organize and tend to happen more frequently,” as the DemoCamp wiki states.
Following in the BarCamp tradition, DemoCamp is an unconference – meaning it is a self-organizing event that is initiated through a wiki and is self-organized by the community (that would be you and I). I actually attended a DemoCamp in Toronto a while back and it was my initiation into the marvelous world of unconferences. Since then, I’ve been to two PodCamps and semi-organized CaseCamp Montreal.
I have a soft spot for DemoCamp because of what happens – no PowerPoint – just demos. It’s for people to talk, demonstrate and discuss the technology stuff that they’re grinding, and even though most of it is over this Marketers’ Twitter-ravaged head, I’m always duly impressed with the passion, ideas and discussion that happens at DemoCamp.
Now the marketing challenge: I consider myself a fairly plugged in kind-of-guy, so how does DemoCamp Montreal 2 get self-organized below my radar? Part of the challenge with so many channels of communications is “staying connected.”
How crazy is that? I’m constantly talking about how we’re always connected and by always being connected it’s becoming harder to stay connected to all of the many events, conversations and new tools that are being introduced.
Where’s the filter?
How are we going to manage all of this content and conversation? Clearly it won’t just be Google Reader (I’m currently staring at 7002 unread Blog postings) or iTunes (I have over thirty Podcasts that have not been listened to). Is it a question about the amount of content and not how we manage it? Could be. I’m still grappling with both the amount and the management, so imagine your everyday consumer (who is also creating content themselves)? How can they be engaged in great brand experiences? This might be a case where the old rules still apply. Namely: the cream always rises to the top.
I’ve decided to grab an early flight back from Toronto to Montreal so I can attend DemoCamp Montreal 2 next week.
This kind of unconference ranks as “cream.”